Page 17 of A Lady’s Guide to Mystery and Mischief

Farah let out a sigh of pure frustration, her fingers picking at the beading of her reticule.

Think.

“Let us try for a month,” she suggested. “If we’re unsuccessful, you may explore other means of tracking the money down.”

“Other means?”

Farah shrugged. “I won’t pretend to know what they are. My only request is that we try.”

“You keep saying we,” he shot back. This time, it was he who leaned forward, and she who leaned back. “As in, you keep assuming I will allow you to—”

“I was not looking for your permission, Mr. Montgomery. One month, and we keep our investigation as private as possible.”

There it was again—that muscle that seemed to tick in his jaw every time he was irritated or desperate to bite back a smile.

“You realize how inappropriate this is, don’t you?” Standing up, he pressed his palms against the desk, body still angled toward hers. “A lady of your standing shouldn’t be alone with a man, for one.”

“If you would let me finish,” Farah said, wishing her skin hadn’t grown so uncomfortably warm, “I should like to sweeten my offer.”

He straightened with abrupt quickness, almost as though he’d been burnt by the mahogany that separated them. “Sweeten?”

“I would like to offer my services.”

Again, he did no more than repeat one of her words back to her. “Services.”

“Yes,” she said, wondering what had come over him. “As your secretary.”

“Jesus Christ,” he grumbled, running a palm down his face. “Are you mad?”

“I’ve never performed any secretarial duties before, of course.”

“Of course you haven’t,” he barked. “You’re a gentlewoman.”

“But I should like to be useful to you,” she insisted. “And it will give me ample reason to be here. No impropriety can occur between a man and his secretary.”

He coughed, sounding as if he were choking.

Before he could even think about refusing her, she added, “There is something else I can offer you.”

“Please, Miss Rafiq, I think—”

“I’m quite the accomplished herbalist,” she declared, beginning to dig through her reticule. Finally, her gloved fingers closed around a small jar. Pulling it out, she placed it on his desk with a triumphant flourish.

“Please tell me it’s poison,” he said, returning to his chair with a heavy thud. “Because there is nothing more I’d like to imbibe at present.”

Farah prickled. “It’s not poison. It’s for your scar.”

The silence that fell was dreadful, the weight of it seeming to suck the air out of the already stuffy room. Farah’s skin continued to heat, as though her blood were being held over an unruly flame.

“My scar,” he said, his voice low and dangerous, “is none of your concern.”

“I don’t mean to be rid of it,” she said, careful to tread lightly. “Only to make it less—that is, the day I saw it, it looked—”

“Go on,” he said, his mouth pressed into a straight line. “What did it look like?”

“It looked uncomfortable. That’s all.”

He softened at the words. “Uncomfortable?”